FOOTNOTES:
[925] Mémoires de Marguerite de Valois, 25, 26.
[926] No dispensation was ever granted until after the marriage, and after Henry of Navarre's simulated conversion to Roman Catholicism. Then, of course, there was no need of further hesitation, and the document was granted, of which a copy is printed in Documents historiques inédits, i. 713-715. The bull is dated Oct. 27, 1572. There is, then, no necessity for Mr. Henry White's uncertainty (Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 370): "The new pope, Gregory XIII., appears to have been more compliant, or the letter stating that a dispensation was on the road must have been a forgery."
[927] De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.), 569; Lo stratagema di Carlo IX. rè di Francia, contro gli Ugonotti, rebelli di Dio e suoi; descritto dal signor Camillo Capilupi, e mandato di Roma al signor Alfonzo Capilupi. Ce stratageme est cy après mis en François avec un avertissement au lecteur. 1574. Orig. ed., p. 22.
[928] Mémoires de l'estat de France sous Charles IX. (Cimber et Danjou, vii. 78.)
[929] "Avec certain formulaire que les uns et les autres n'improuvoyent point." Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, vii. 79.
[930] As De Thou here speaks as an eye-witness of the marriage, I follow his description very closely. Histoire univ., iv. (liv. lii.) 469, 470. Agrippa d'Aubigné was not in Paris (Mémoires, édit. Panthéon, p. 478), and his account is meagre and deficient in originality. Hist. univ., ii. 12 (liv. i., c. 3). It is quite in keeping with the brave Gascon's character, that, having come to Paris some days before, in order to obtain a commission to command a company of soldiers which he had raised for the war in Flanders, he had been obliged to leave almost instantly upon his arrival, because he had acted as the second of a friend in a duel, and wounded in the face an archer who endeavored to arrest him. Tavannes makes Coligny suggest the removal of the ensigns taken from the Protestants as "marques de troubles," and playfully claim for himself the 50,000 crowns promised to any one who should bring the admiral's head. Mémoires, éd. Petitot, iii. 293.
[931] Mémoires de l'État, ubi supra, pp. 79, 80; De Thou, ubi supra. I have not deemed it out of place to describe some of the diversions with which the French court occupied itself on the eve of the massacre. The connection between reckless merriment and cold-blooded cruelty is often startlingly close. Besides this, the finances of the country were so hopelessly involved, as the consequence of the late civil wars, that this lavish expenditure was particularly ill-timed. If old Gaspard de Tavannes was as blunt as his son represents him to have been, he gave Charles some good, but, like most good, unheeded advice. "Sire," said he, à propos of the extravagance of the court at Guise's marriage in 1570, "you should make a feast, and instead of the singers who are brought in artificial clouds, you should bring those who would tell you this truth: 'You are dolts! You spend your money in festivals, in pomps and masks, and do not pay your men-at-arms nor your soldiers; foreigners will beat you!'" Mémoires, éd. Petitot, iii. 183.
[932] I had translated this letter from the copy given by the Mémoires de l'estat de France (apud Archives curieuses, vii. 80, 81), which agrees substantially with, and was probably derived from, the version given in Hotman's Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 106, 107. On comparing it, however, with the transcript of the original autograph in the remarkable collection of the late Col. Henri Tronchin, given by M. Jules Bonnet in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, i. (1853), 369, I discover extraordinary discrepancies, and find that, in addition to a different phraseology in every sentence, one clause is inserted by Hotman of which there is not a trace in the Tronchin MS. I refer to the words: "Soyez asseurée de ma part que, parmi ces festins et passe-temps, je ne donneray fascherie à personne"—which would, of course, point to the prevailing fears of a collision between the admiral and the young Duke of Guise, or his retainers, whose hatred of Coligny was so well known that Charles IX. had issued a special injunction to the parties to keep the peace. The letter contains at the commencement of the postscript a playful allusion to the hope of his wife soon to be a mother.
[933] Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 88, 89; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 570. The mechanical part of these exhibitions was well executed. In the "enfer" there were "un grand nombre de diables et petis diabloteaux faisans infinies singeries et tintamarres avec une grande roue tournant dedans ledit enfer, toute environnée de clochettes." The singer, Étienne le Roy, was again the "deus ex machina," coming from heaven and returning thither, in the character of Mercury mounted upon a gigantic bird. The final explosion inspired so much consternation among the spectators, that it effectually cleared the hall.
[934] They were married at Blandy, a castle belonging to the Marquise de Rothelin, near Melun, where its ruins are still to be seen (Saint-Fargeau, Dict. des communes de France, s. v.), about a week before the marriage of Navarre, August 10, 1572. Tocsain contre les massacreurs (Arch. curieuses, vii. 42). Marie of Cleves was a daughter of the Duke of Nevers, and sister of Catharine of Cleves, Prince Porcien's widow, whom Henry of Guise had married in Sept., 1570. Journal de Jehan de la Fosse, 146.
[935] It is astonishing to see what considerable distances the Protestants were obliged to go in order to enjoy any religious privileges, and what fatigue they willingly underwent in order to avail themselves of them. In 1563, immediately after the close of the first civil war, instead of being assigned a place for worship in the suburbs, according to the terms of the edict, the Protestants of Troyes were told to go to Céant-en-Othe—full eight leagues, or about twenty-four miles; nor could they obtain justice by any remonstrances with the court! As they went to Céant, in spite of its inconvenient distance, and of the death of several children taken thither to be baptized, the Romanists, in 1570, actually proposed to remove the Protestant prêche still farther off, to Villenauxe, thirteen leagues from Troyes! Happily, after a while, they availed themselves of the hospitality of a feudal lord nearer by. Recordon, Le protestantisme en Champagne (MSS. of N. Pithou), 136, etc., 149, 163.
[936] Ibid., pp. 168, 169. The Roman Catholics of Troyes sent, about the middle of August, two deputies to get the Protestant place of worship removed from Isle-au-Mont, who were present at the massacre.
[937] Baschet, La diplomatie vénitienne, p. 540.
[938] This confession exists in manuscript in the National Library of Paris (Fonds de Bouhier, 59), under the heading: "Discours du Roy Henry troisiesme à un personnage d'honneur et de qualité estant près de sa majesté, sur les causes et motifs de la St. Barthélemy." It is printed in an appendix to the Mémoires de Villeroy (Petitot ed., xliv. 496-510). Its authenticity is vouched for by Matthieu, the historiographer of Louis XIII., and is corroborated by its remarkable agreement with what we can learn from other sources. Cf., especially, Soldan, Frankreich und die Bartholomäusnacht, 224-226. Some suppose that M. de Souvré, and not Miron, was the person with whom the conversation at Cracow was held. Martin, Hist. de France, x. 315.
[939] Discours du Roy Henry III., Mém. de Villeroy, 499, 500.
[940] See J. Bonnet, Vie d'Olympia Morata (Paris, 1850), 20, etc.
[941] Discours du Roy Henry III., ibid., p. 501. The nuncio, Salviati, informs us that young Guise urged his mother herself to kill Coligny.
[942] The article on the massacre in the North British Review for October, 1869—an article to which I shall have occasion more than once to refer—brings forward a number of passages in the diplomatic correspondence, especially of the minor Italian states, pointing in this direction. They can all, I am convinced, be satisfactorily explained, without admitting the conclusion, to which the writer evidently leans, of a distinct, though not a long premeditation.
[943] "Mad. la Regente venuta in differenza di lui, risolvendosi pochi giorni prima, gli la fece tirare, e senza saputa del Re, ma con participatione di M. di Angiu, di Mad. de Nemours, e di M. di Guisa suo figlio; e se moriva subito non si ammazzava altri," etc. Salviati, desp. of Sept. 22, 1572, apud Mackintosh, Hist. of England, vol. iii., Appendix K. It will be remembered that these despatches were given to Sir James Mackintosh by M. de Châteaubriand, who had obtained them from the Vatican. I need not say how much more trustworthy are the secret despatches of one so well informed as the nuncio, than the sensational "Stratagema" of Capilupi, which pretends (ed. of 1574, p. 26) that Charles placed Maurevel in the house from which he shot at Coligny, on discovering that the admiral had formed the plan of firing Paris the next night. To believe these champions of orthodoxy, the Huguenots were born with a special passion for incendiary exploits. It does not seem to strike them that burning and pillaging Paris would not be likely to appear to Coligny a probable means of furthering the war in Flanders. Besides, what need is there of any such Huguenot plot, even according to Capilupi's own view, since he carries back the premeditation of the massacre on the part of Charles at least four years?
[944] Le Reveille-Matin des François, etc., Archives curieuses, vii. 173; Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi (1574), i. 33. It has been customary to interpret this language and similar expressions as covertly referring to the massacre which was then four days off. But this seems absurd. Certainly, if Charles was privy to the plan for Coligny's murder, he must have expected him to be killed on Friday—that is, within less than two days. If so, what peculiar significance in the four days? For, if a general massacre had been at first contemplated, no interval of two days would have been allowed. Everybody must have known that if the arquebuse shot had done its work, and Coligny had been killed on the spot, every Huguenot would have been far from the walls of Paris long before Sunday. As it was, it was only the admiral's confidence, and the impossibility of moving him with safety, that detained them.
[945] Capilupi, Lo stratagema di Carlo IX., 1574. Orig. ed., pp. 24, 25, and the concurrent French version, pp. 42, 43. This version is incorporated verbatim in the Mémoires de l'estat de France sous Charles IX. (Archives curieuses), vii. 89, 90. In like manner the "Mémoires," which are in great part a mere compilation, take page after page from the "Reveille-Matin."
[946] "Ainsi qu'il sortoit presentement du Louvre, pour aller disner en son logis." Charles's letter of the same day to La Mothe Fénélon, Corresp. dipl., vii. 322.
[947] It is of little moment whether the assassin at his window was screened by a lattice, or by a curtain, as De Thou says, or by bundles of straw, as Capilupi states. I prefer the account of the "Reveille-Matin," as the author tells us that he was one of the twelve or fifteen gentlemen in Coligny's suite—"entre lesquels j'estoy" (p. 174). So the Latin ed., Euseb. Philad. Dialogi, i. 34.
[948] The Rue de Béthisy was the continuation of the Rue des Fossés Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, through which he was walking when he was shot. In the sixteenth century the street bore the former name, beginning at the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, at the corner of which Coligny appears to have lodged. In later times the name was confined to the part east of Rue de Roule. Dulaure, Histoire de Paris, iv. 259. The extension of the Rue de Rivoli, under the auspices of Napoleon III., has not only destroyed the house in which Coligny was murdered, but obliterated the Rue de Béthisy itself.
[949] "Qu'il n'aviendroit que ce qu'il plairoit à Dieu." Reveille-Matin, 175; Euseb. Philad. Dialogi (1574), i. 35; Mémoires de l'estat, 94.
[950] See ante, chapter xvi.
[951] Reveille-Matin, ubi sup., 175; and Euseb. Philad. Dialogi. i. 34, 35; Mémoires de l'estat, ubi sup., 93, etc.; Jean de Serres (1575), iv. fol. 25; Tocsain contre les Massacreurs (orig. ed.), 113, etc.; Registres du Bureau de la ville de Paris (Archives curieuses, vii. 211); despatch of Salviati of Aug. 22. App. F to Mackintosh, Hist. of England, iii. 354; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 574; Jehan de la Fosse, 147, 148; Baschet. La diplomatie vénit., 548.
[952] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi sup., 94; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fols. 25, 26; Reveille-Matin, 176; Euseb. Philad. Dial., i. 35; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 574.
[953] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, Archives cur., vii. 45; Reveille-Matin, 177; Mémoires de l'estat, 98.
[954] Gasparis Colinii Vita (1574), 108-110; Mémoires de l'estat de Charles IX., ubi supra, 94-98. The two accounts are evidently from the same hand.
[955] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 98.
[956] Damville, Méru and Thoré, were sons of the constable. Their eldest brother, Marshal Francis de Montmorency, whose greatest vice was his sluggishness and his devotion to his ease, had left Paris a few days before, on the pretext of going to the chase. His absence at the time of the massacre was supposed to have saved not only his life, but that of his brothers. The Guises would gladly have destroyed a family whose influence and superior antiquity had for a generation been obnoxious to their ambitious designs; but it was too hazardous to leave the head of the family to avenge his murdered brothers.
[957] There was no need of going far, Coligny responded, to discover the author. "Qu'on en demande à Monsieur de Guise, il dira qui est celuy qui m'a presté une telle charité; mais Dieu ne me soit jamais en aide si je demande vengeance d'un tel outrage." Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 104, 105.
[958] Gasparis Colinii Vita, 114-121; Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 102-106. The two accounts agree almost word for word. There is a briefer narrative in Reveille-Matin, 178, 179; and Euseb. Philad. Dialogi, i. 37.
[959] Discours du roy Henry III., ubi supra, 502-505.
[960] Le roi à Mandelot, 22 août, Correspondance du roi Charles IX. et du sieur de Mandelot (Paris, 1830), 36, 37.
[961] Corresp. dipl. de La Mothe Fénélon, vii. 322, 323.
[962] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 106, 107.
[963] Ibid., 108.
[964] There is here, however, a direct contradiction, which I shall not attempt to reconcile, between the account of Henry and that of the younger Tavannes, who represents Retz as one of the most violent in his recommendations. According to Tavannes, it was his father, Marshal Tavannes, that advocated moderation. In other respects the two accounts are strongly corroborative of each other.
[965] Discours du roy Henry III., 505-508.
[966] Mémoires de Gaspard de Saulx, seigneur de Tavannes, by his son, Jean de Saulx, vicomte de Tavannes (Petitot edition), iii. 293, 294.
[967] "Reginam quidem certum est dictitare solitam, edita strage, 'se tantum sex hominum interfectorum sanguinem in suam conscientiam recipere.'" Jean de Serres (ed. of 1575), iv., fol. 29. The whole passage is interesting.
[968] "Le roy Henry quatriesme disoit que ce qu'il ne m'avoit tenu promesse estoit en vengeance des services faicts par le sieur de Tavannes mon père aux batailles de Jarnac et Montcontour, mais le principal, parce qu'il l'accusoit d'avoir conseillé la Sainct Barthélemy; ce qu'il disoit à ses familiers, et à tort, parce que ledict sieur de Tavannes en ce temps-là fut cause qu'il ne courust la mesme fortune que le sieur admiral de Coligny." Mémoires de Tavannes (Petitot edit.), iii. 222.
[969] To ascribe the conduct of Catharine de' Medici herself to any such motive is the extreme of absurdity. Even the author of the "Tocsain contre les massacreurs" rejects the supposition without hesitation. (Original edition, p. 157.) Catharine was certainly a free-thinker, probably an atheist.
[970] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 108.
[971] Ibid., 109.
[972] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 110, 111.
[973] Ibid., 111; Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 124.
[974] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 112.
[975] Reveille-Matin, ubi supra, 179; Mémoires de l'estat, ubi sup., 113.
[976] Capilupi, 30, 31; Mém. de l'estat, ubi sup., 107, 108.
[977] Extrait des Registres et Croniques du Bureau de la ville de Paris, Archives curieuses, vii. 213.
[978] The successive orders are given in the Archives curieuses, vii. 215-217.
[979] Discours du roy Henry III., 509.
[980] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 121; Mém. de l'estat, ubi sup., 116; Jean de Serres, iv. (1575), fol. 31.
[981] Jean de Serres, iv. (1575), fol. 30.
[982] Mém. de l'estat, ubi sup., 117, 118; Jean de Serres (1575), iv. 32.
[983] The startling inconsistency evidently struck Capilupi very strongly, for he tries to reconcile it, but succeeds only poorly. According to him, it was either a ruse to throw Charles IX. off his guard by a pretence of confidence in his good faith, or an act of consummate folly. Any way, great thanks are due to Heaven! "Et sia stato fatto questo da lui, ò con arte, per dimostrar di non dubitare della fede del Re, per tanto più assicurar sua Maestà, fin che fosse in termine d'effettuar i diabolici suoi pensieri; ò vero scioccamente, non diffidando veramente di cosa alcuna; in tutti modi si ha da riconoscer da gratia particolare di Dio," etc. Lo stratagema di Carlo IX., 1574, 80.
[984] The topography of the massacre is made the subject of a paper, entitled: "Les victimes de la Saint-Barthélemy," Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., ix. (1860) 34-44.
[985] G. Colinii Vita (1575), 127. Mém. de l'estat, ubi sup., 114.
[986] Mém. de l'estat, 118, 119; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 32; Reveille-Matin, 180; Euseb. Philad. Dialogi (1574), 39, 40.
[987] Joh. Wilh. von Botzheim, in his narrative, gives several versions of the words. According to one they were: "Behem—'N'est tu pas Admiral?' Admiralius—'Ouy, je le suis. Mais vous estes bien un jeune souldat pour parler ainsi avec un vieil capitaine, pour le moins au respect de ma vielesse.' Behem—'Je suis assez aage (agé) por te faire ta reste.'" Cyclopica illa atque inaudita hactenus detestanda atque execranda laniena, quæ facta est Lutetia, Aureliis, etc., published in F. W. Ebeling, Archivalische Beiträge zur Geschichte Frankreichs unter Carl IX. (Leipsic, 1872), 107, 108.
[988] Capilupi puts in Besme's mouth the words: "Now, traitor, restore to me the blood of my master, which thou didst impiously take away from me!" It is not at all improbable that he used some such expression. Lo stratagema di Carlo IX., 34.
[989] Jean de Serres, De statu reipub. et rel. (1575), iv., fols. 32, 33; Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 119-122; Vita Gasparis Colinii Castellonii, magni quondam Franciæ Amirallii (sine loco, 1575), pp. 127-131; 178-180. These latter accounts, which agree perfectly, are the best. Reveille-Matin, ubi sup., 182, and Euseb. Philad. Dialogi (1574), i. 39, 40; Tocsain contre les massacreurs (Rheims, 1579), 121-123; Capilupi, Lo stratagema di Carlo IX. (1574), 33, etc.; Journal d'un curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 148, 149; Relation of Olaegui, secretary of D. de Cuñiga, Spanish ambassador at Paris; Particularités inédites sur la St. Barthélemi, Gachard in Bulletins de l'Académie royale de Belgique, xvi. (1849), 252, 253; Alva's bulletin prepared for distribution, ibid., ix. (1842), 563. Both are very inaccurate. De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 584, 585; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 16 (liv. i., c. 4).
[990] "Le lundy d'après, ayant la teste ostée et les parties honteuses coupées par les petits enfans, fut d'iceulx petits enfans qui estoient jusques au nombre de 2 ou 300, traîné, le ventre en haut, parmy les ruisseaux de la ville de Paris." Jehan de la Fosse, 149. See the long account in Von Botzheim's narration, ubi supra, 113.
[991] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 122.
[992] Letter of Mandelot to Charles IX., Sept. 5, 1572, Correspondance du roi Charles IX. et du sieur de Mandelot (Edited by P. Paris, Paris, 1830), 56-58.
[993] Of this memorable enterprise Coligny has left "Mémoires" which are contained in the collection of Petitot, etc. It is the only military treatise we possess coming from the admiral's hand, and it enters into the subject with technical minuteness. The destruction by his royal murderers of the admiral's papers (including diaries that would have thrown great light upon the transactions of the last two years of his life), see Vita Gasparis Colinii (1575), i. 138, was an irretrievable loss to history. We are told also of a much more recent act of vandalism, not even palliated by the miserable excuse of political expediency: "In 1810, an inhabitant of Châtillon having discovered in the solitary remaining tower of the old castle a walled chamber wherein were the archives of the Coligny family and of the family of Luxemburg, burned all the papers from motives of private interest. Some fragments that escaped this conflagration, and which are preserved in the mairie, prove that a correspondence between Catharine de' Medici and Coligny had been laid away in this repository." Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire du prot. français, iii. (1854) 351.
[994] Ante, chapter xiii.
[995] Testament olographe de l'amiral Coligny, Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, i. (1852) 263, etc. The authenticity of this document, though called in question on historical grounds, has been conclusively established by M. Jules Bonnet, Bulletin, xxiv. (1875) 332-335.
[996] Albèri, Relazioni Venete, vol. iv., 1st series, apud Baschet, La diplomatie vénitienne, i. 536, 537. There is, however, the greatest improbability in the story that Coligny advanced such claims in his own behalf as his admirers made for him. We may reject as apocryphal—for they stand in palpable contradiction with the whole tenor of his utterances—the words ascribed by Lord Macaulay to the great Huguenot hero (History of England, New York, 1879, iv. 488): "'In one respect,' said the Admiral Coligni, 'I may claim superiority over Alexander, over Scipio, over Cæsar. They won great battles, it is true. I have lost four great battles; and yet I show to the enemy a more formidable front than ever.'" Cf. Davila, bk. v., p. 179.
[997] Vita Gasparis Colinii (1575), pp. 133-137, translated by D. D. Scott, under the title, "Memoirs of the Admiral de Coligny," 183-187. I have abridged the account by omitting some less important particulars.
[998] Discours sur les causes de l'exécution faicte és personnes de ceux qui avoient conjuré contre le Roy et son estat. A Paris, à l'olivier de P. l'Huillier, rue St. Jacques. 1572. Avec privilège. (Archives curieuses, vii. 231-249.) Capilupi, Lo stratagema di Carlo IX., 1574, p. 26.
[999] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 123; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 30; Reveille-Matin, 182; Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi, i. 40.
[1000] "La Royne ma mère respond, que s'il plaisoit à Dieu je n'auroit point de mal; mais quoy que ce fust, il falloit que j'allasse, de peur de leur faire soupçonner quelque chose qui empeschast l'effect."
[1001] Mémoires de Marguerite de Valois, 32, 33.
[1002] See ante, chapter xvi.
[1003] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 123, 124; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 34; Reveille-Matin, 182; Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi, i. 40; Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 125, 126.
[1004] Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 18 (liv. i., c. 4).
[1005] Mémoires de Marguerite de Valois, 345.
[1006] Reveille-Matin, ubi supra, 183; Euseb. Philad. Dialogi, i. 40; Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 126. Charles was not generally so complaisant. Fervaques in vain interceded for his friend Captain Moneins. Tocsain, 126.
[1007] Mém. de l'estat, ubi sup., 124; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 35; Reveille-Matin, 182; Euseb. Philadelphi Dial., i. 40; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 590.
[1008] "Avec une contenance fort esmeue et abatue." Mém. de l'estat. "Humilissimo animo et consternate ore." Jean de Serres, ubi supra.
[1009] Jean de Serres's "consternatiori tamen animo" is an evident misprint for "constantiori tamen animo."
[1010] Mémoires de l'estat, 124, 125; Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 35 verso; Reveille-Matin, 183; Eusebii Philad. Dial. (1574), i. 40; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 590; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., ii. 19 (liv. i., c. 4).
[1011] Eusebii Phil. Dialogi, i. 40, 41; Reveille-Matin, ubi sup., 183, copied verbatim in Mém. de l'estat, 126. The Reveille-Matin removes the apparent contradiction between the various accounts respecting the bell that gave the signal for the massacre by showing that both bells were rung. So also Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 16 (liv. i., c. 4), after mentioning how Catharine, for the time being, removed Charles's hesitation by alleging the necessity of cutting off the corrupt members in order to save the Church, the Bride of Christ, and citing the saying: "Che pietà lor ser crudele. Che crudeltà lor ser pietosa," adds: "Le roi se resout, et elle avance le tocsain du Palais, en faisant sonner une heure et demie devant celui de Sainct Germain de l'Auxerrois." By neglecting the clue thus given, the chronological order of the events of the day has been lost by a number of historians. It will be noticed that the number of the royal guards reported to have been slain was, strangely enough, derived from that of the Huguenot gentlemen butchered in the Louvre by those very guards. The story may have been perpetuated by misapprehension of the facts; it could have arisen only from wilful falsehood.
[1012] Tocsain contre les massacreurs (Rheims, 1579), 124, 125; Reveille-Matin, 126; Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi, i. 41; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 18; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 586.
[1013] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 125; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 18; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 586; Euseb. Philad. Dialogi, ubi supra.
[1014] "The courtiers and the soldiers of the royal guard were the executioners of this commission on the (Huguenot) noblesse, terminating, they said, by the sword and general disorder, those processes which pens and paper and the order of justice had hitherto failed to bring to an issue." Reveille-Matin, ubi supra, 184; Eusebii Philad. Dialogi, i 41; Mémoires de l'estat, 127.
[1015] Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 18.
[1016] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 136, 137.
[1017] Reveille-Matin, ubi supra, 184, 185; Eusebii Philad. Dial., i. 42; Mém. de l'estat, 127; Jean de Serres (1575), iv. 38; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 588; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 18. The minor details of the story are given, with variations, by different authors. D'Aubigné gives us Biron's answer to the commands and menaces with which Madame de la Châtaigneraie sought to gain possession of young La Force: "I would certainly intrust him in the hands of his relative, in order to take care of him, but not in the hands of his next heir, who took too great care of him yesterday morning," ii. 21. It must be noted, however, that the "Mémoires authentiques de Jacques Nompar de Caumont, Duc de la Force, Maréchal de France, recueillis par le Marquis de la Grange" (Paris, 1843), i. 2-37, so far from accusing the sister of La Force, ascribe the persistent attempts to secure his death solely to Archan (or Larchant), who had married this sister; and they state that, at her death, she left her property, including what she had inherited from her husband, to her brother.
[1018] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 146
[1019] Mém. de l'estat, 146; Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 129, 130; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 592; Claude Haton, ii. 678; Agrippa d'Aubigné, ii. 20.
[1020] Tocsain, 136.
[1021] Mém. de l'estat, 146.
[1022] "Radices, atque etiam radicum fibras, funditus evellas." Pii Quinti Epistolæ, 111. See ante, chapter xvi., p. 308.
[1023] Mém. de l'estat, 147. The children of other cities emulated the example of those of Paris. In Provins, in the month of October, 1572, a Huguenot, Jean Crespin, after having been hung by the officers of justice, was taken down from the gallows by "les petis enfans de Provins, de l'âge de douze ans et au dessoubz," to the number of more than one hundred. By these mimic judges he was declared unworthy to be dragged save by his feet, and, his punishment by hanging being reckoned too light, he was roasted in a fire of straw, and presently thrown into the river. Numbers of older persons looked on, approving and encouraging the children; a few good Catholics were grieved to see such cruelty practised on a dead body. Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 704-706.
[1024] Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 128.
[1025] "On en remarqua qui avoient les yeux attachés sur le corps du Baron du Pont, pour voir si elles y trouveroient quelque cause ou quelque marque de l'impuissance qu'on lui reprochoit." De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 587. See Euseb. Philadelphi Dial., i. 45, and Jean de Serres (1575) iv., fol. 39.
[1026] "Le Roy, la Royne mère, et leurs courtisans, rioyent à gorge desployée." Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 132.
[1027] The prévôt, échevins, etc., "du tout, auroient, d'heure en heure, rendu compte et tesmoignage à sadicte Majesté." Extrait des registres et croniques du bureau de la ville de Paris, Archives curieuses, vii. 215.
[1028] Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra.
[1029] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, Rheims, 1579, p. 140.
[1030] Ibid., ubi supra.
[1031] Brantôme, Homines illustres français, M. de Thavannes.
[1032] "Declarant (Alençon) qu'il ne pouvoit approuver vn tel desordre, ny qu'on rompit si ouvertement la foy promise, qui fut cause que sa mere luy dit en termes clairs que s'il bougeoit elle le feroit ietter dans vn sac aual l'eau." Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 141.
[1033] Ib., 133.
[1034] De Thou, iv. 592.
[1035] His son, Jacques Merlin, at a later time pastor at La Rochelle, although he does not mention the particulars of his father's escape, in the journal published for the first time by M. Gaberel in an appendix to the second vol. of his Histoire de l'église de Genève, pp. 153-207, alludes to it—"fut deliuré par une grace de Dieu spéciale" (p. 155).
[1036] Mémoires de Sully (London, 1748), i. pp. 29, 30.
[1037] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 131; Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 142, etc. De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 592, 593. Strange to say, Von Botzheim was so far misinformed, that he makes Charpentier weep for the fate of Ramus! Archival. Beiträge, p. 117.
[1038] De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 596; Mémoires de l'estat de France sous Charles IX. (Cimber et Danjou, vii. 137-142, and in M. Buchon's biographical notice prefixed to the "Commentaires"). An appreciative chapter on Pierre de la Place and his works may be read in Victor Bujeaud, Chronique protestante de l'Angoumois (Angoulême, 1860), 50-66.
[1039] Cahors is over 300 miles in a straight line from Paris, more than 400 miles—153 leagues—by the roads.
[1040] De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 594, 595; Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., ii. 23.
[1041] The incident of Charles IX.'s firing upon the Huguenots has been of late the subject of much discussion. M. Fournier and M. Méry have denied the existence, in 1572, of the pavilion at which tradition makes the king to have stationed himself. See Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, v. (1857) 332, etc. It has, I think, been conclusively shown that they are mistaken. The pavilion was in existence. But, besides, there is no reason why an incident should be deemed apocryphal because of a popular mistake in assigning the spot of its occurrence. The "Reveille-Matin" and the Eusebii Philadelphi Dialogi, published in 1574, are the earliest documents that refer to it. They place Charles at the window of his own room. So does Brantôme, writing considerably later. Jean de Serres (in the fourth vol. of his Commentaria de statu, etc. (fol. 37), published in 1575) says: "Regem quoque ex hypæthrio (i.e., from a covered gallery) aiunt, adhibitis, ut solebat, diris contenta voce conclamare, et tormento etiam ipsum ejaculari." Agrippa d'Aubigné alludes to it not only in his Histoire universelle (ii. 19, 21), but in his Tragiques (Bulletin, vii. 185), a poem which he commenced as early as in 1577 (See Bulletin, x. 202). M. Henri Bordier has been so fortunate as to discover and has reprinted a contemporary engraving of the massacre, in which Charles is represented as excitedly looking on the slaughter from a window in the Louvre, while behind him stand two halberdiers and several noblemen (Bulletin, x. 106, 107). The question is discussed in an able and exhaustive manner by MM. Fournier, Ludovic Lalanne, Bernard, Berty, Bordier, and others, in the Bulletin, v. 332-340; vi. 118-126; vii. 182-187; x. 5-11, 105-107, 199-204.
[1042] The Porte de Bussy, or Bucy, was the first gate toward the west on the southern side of the Seine. During the reign of Francis I. and his successors of the house of Valois, the walls of Paris were of small compass. In this quarter their general direction is well marked out by the Rue Mazarine. The circuit started from the Tour de Nesle, which was nearly opposite the eastern front of the Louvre—the short Rue de Bussy fixes the situation of the gate where Guise was delayed. A little west of this is the abbey church of St. Germain-des-Prés, which gave its name to the suburb opposite the Louvre and the Tuileries. This quaint pile—the oldest church, or, indeed, edifice of any kind in Paris—after being built in the sixth century, and injured by the Normans in the ninth, was rebuilt and dedicated in 1163 A.D., by Alexander III. in person. On that occasion the Bishop of Paris was not even permitted by the jealous monks to be present, on the ground that the abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés was exempt from his jurisdiction. The pontiff confirmed their position, and his sermon, instead of being an exposition of the Gospel, was devoted to setting forth the privileges accorded to the abbey by St. Germain, Bishop of Paris, in 886. Dulaure, Histoire de Paris, ii. 79-84.
[1043] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 138, 139; Reveille-Matin, 186-188; Mém. de l'estat, 129-131.
[1044] See Henry White, Massacre of St. Bartholomew, p. 460.
[1045] Valued at from 100,000 to 200,000 crowns, Reveille-Matin, 190; Mém. de l'estat, 151. The interesting anonymous letter from Heidelberg, Dec. 22, 1573, published first by the Marquis de Noailles in his "Henri de Valois et la Pologne en 1572" (Paris, 1867), iii. 533, from the MSS. of Prince Czartoryski, alludes to the costly jewels which Henry, now king-elect of Poland, made to the elector palatine, his host, and remarks: "Fortasse magna hæc fuisse videbitur liberalitas et rege digna, at parva certe vel nulla potius fuit, si vel sumptibus quos illustrissimus noster princeps in deducendo et excipiendo hoc hospite sustinuit conferamus, vel si unde hæc dona sint profecta expendamus. Ipse siquidem rex (Henry) ne teruncium pro iis solvisse, sed ex taberna cujusdam prædivitis aurifabri Parisiensis, quam scelerati sui ministri in strage illa nobilium ut alias multas diripuerunt, accepisse ea fertur."
[1046] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 150. Versailles, which thus passed into the hands of the family of Marshal Retz—the Gondi family—was an old castle situated in the midst of an almost unbroken forest. The Gondi family sold it to Louis XIII., who built a hunting lodge, afterward transmuted by Louis XIV. into the magnificent palace, which, for more than a century, was the favorite residence of the most splendid court in Europe. The mode in which the title was acquired did not augur well for the justice or the morality which was to reign there. M. L. Lacour has contributed an animated sketch, "Versailles et les protestants de France," to the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., viii. (1859) 352-367.
[1047] Discours sur les causes de l'exécution, ubi supra, 249.
[1048] Royal orders of Aug. 25th, Aug. 27th, etc. Order of the Prévôt des marchands, Aug. 30th. Registres du bureau de la ville, Archives curieuses, vii. 222-230. Euseb. Philadelphi Dialog., i. 45.
[1049] Registres du bureau de la ville, pp. 222, 223.
[1050] Ibid., p. 227.
[1051] "Aucuns malades languissans, ayant ouy ce miracle, se firent porter audit cymetière pour veoir laditte espine; lesquelz, estans là avec ferme foy, firent leur prière à Dieu en l'honneur de nostre dame la vierge Marie et devant son ymage qui est en laditte chapelle, pour recouvrer leur santé, et, après leur oraison faicte, s'en retournèrent en leurs maisons sains et guaris de leur maladie, chose très-véritable et bien approuvèe." Mém. de Claude Haton, ii. 682.
[1052] Ibid., ubi supra; Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 146; Reveille-Matin, 193, 194; Mém. de l'estat, 155; Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 41; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 596.
[1053] Dr. White (Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 459) has tabulated the estimates, nine in number, afforded by twenty-one distinct authorities. The lowest estimate—1,000 victims—is that of the Abbé Caveyrac, whose undisguised aim was to place the number as low as possible, so as to palliate the atrocity of the massacre. Being based apparently upon the number of the names of victims that have been recorded, it may be dismissed as unworthy of consideration. The highest estimate, of 10,000, though adopted by such writers as the authors of the Reveille-Matin and the Mémoires de l'estat de France, is vague or excessive. The Tocsain and Agrippa d'Aubigné are, perhaps, too moderate in respectively stating the number as 2,000 and 3,000. On the whole, it appears to me, the contribution of Paris to the massacre of the Huguenots may be set down with the greatest probability at between 4,000 and 5,000 persons of all ages and conditions. Von Botzheim, who estimates the total at 8,000 (F. W. Ebeling, Archivalische Beiträge, p. 120), makes 500 of these to be women (Ibid., p. 119).
[1054] In other letters Charles had even the effrontery to represent the King of Navarre as having been in like danger with his brothers and himself. See Eusebii Philadelphi Dialog. (1574), i. 45: "se quidem metu propriæ salutis in arcem Luparam (the Louvre) compulsum illic se continuisse, una cum fratre charissimo Rege Navarræ, et dilectissimo Principe Condensi, ut in communi periculo eundem fortunæ exitum experirentur!"
[1055] Correspondance du roi Charles IX. et du sieur de Mandelot, 39-41. Letter to the Governor of Burgundy, apud Mém. de l'estat, ubi sup., 133-135.
[1056] It was undoubtedly with the object of showing that they were not the prime movers in the massacre, or, as the author of the Mém. de l'estat expresses himself, that they had no particular quarrel save with Admiral Coligny, that Henry of Guise and his uncle actually rescued a few Huguenots from the hands of those who were about to put them to death. Reveille-Matin, 188; Mémoires de l'estat, 150.
[1057] Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 154, from Reveille-Matin, 192; De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 597, 598; Euseb. Philad. Dial., i. 47.
[1058] It was while Charles was on his way to the Palais de Justice that a gentleman in his train, and not far from him, was recognized as being a Protestant, and was killed. The king, hearing the disturbance, turned around; but, on being informed that it was a Huguenot whom they were putting to death, lightly said: "Let us go on. Would to God that he were the last!" Reveille-Matin, 194 (copied in Mém. de l'estat, 157); Euseb. Philad. Dial., i. 50.
[1059] De Thou, whom I have chiefly followed, iv. (liv. lii.) 599; Tocsain contre les massacreurs, 142; Reveille-Matin, 193, 194; Euseb. Phil. Dial., i. 49; Mém. de l'estat, 156; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 43; Capilupi, 45; Relation of Olaegui, secretary of Don Diego de Cuñiga, Spanish ambassador at Paris, to be laid before Philip II., Simancas MSS., apud Bulletins de l'Acad. Roy. des Sciences, etc., de Belgique, vol. xvi. (1849) 254.
[1060] De Thou, Tocsain, etc., ubi supra.
[1061] Returning to the unpleasant theme in a subsequent book of his noble history (iv. (liv. liii.) 644), Jacques Auguste de Thou remarks, with an integrity which cannot swerve even out of consideration for filial respect: "Ce qu'il y avoit de déplorable, étoit de voir des personnes respectables par leur piété, leur science, et leur intégrité, revêtues des premières charges du Royaume, ennemies d'ailleurs de tout déguisement et de tout artifice, tels que Morvilliers, de Thou, Pibrac, Montluc et Bellièvre, louer contre leurs sentimens, ou excuser par complaisance une action qu'ils détestoient dans le cœur, sans y être engagés par aucun motif de crainte ou d'espérance; mais dans la fausse persuasion où ils étoient que les circonstances présentes et le bien de l'État demandoient qu'ils tinssent ce langage."
[1062] The case stands much worse if we accept the statement of the author of the Mémoires de l'estat de France sous Charles IX., who, after contrasting the honorable conduct of President La Vaquerie, in the time of Louis XI., with that of Christopher de Thou, adds: "Mais cestui-ci n'avoit garde de faire le semblable; il prend trop de plaisir à toute sorte d'injustice pour s'y vouloir opposer." (Ubi supra, pp. 156, 157.) So, also, Euseb. Philad. Dial., i. 50: "Nam quomodo sese injustitiæ viriliter opponeret, qui ex ea tam uberes fructus colligit?" The Mém. de l'estat accuse him of having instigated the murder of Rouillard—a counsellor of parliament and canon of Notre Dame, and one of a very few Roman Catholics that were assassinated—because the latter loved justice, and had prosecuted one of the first president's friends (p. 148). According to the historian De Thou, on the other hand (iv. 593), Rouillard was "homme inquiet, querelleux, et ennemi des officiers des compagnies de ville."
[1063] The passage is not in the will in the admiral's own handwriting, dated Archiac, June 5, 1569, a facsimile of which has been accurately lithographed by the French Protestant Historical Society, and which has also been printed in the Bulletin, i. (1852) 263-268. See ante, p. 461, 462.
[1064] Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 153; Gasparis Colinii Vita (1575), 131.
[1065] "The said discourse was all written with his own hand." Walsingham to Smith, Sept. 14, 1572; Digges, 241, 242; Mém. de l'estat, ubi supra, 153; Gasparis Colinii Vita, 131, 132.
[1066] Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fols. 57, 58; Eusebii Philadelphi Dial. (1574), i. 82, 83; Reveille-Matin, 203-205; De Thou, iv. (liv. liii.) 645, 646. For many years the disgraceful commemorative procession was faithfully observed.
[1067] The slight eminence of Montfaucon, the Tyburn of Paris, was between the Faubourg St. Martin and the Faubourg du Temple, near the site of the Hôpital St. Louis. See Dulaure, Atlas de Paris.
[1068] "Il les en reprit et leur dist: 'Je ne bousche comme vous autres, car l'odeur de son ennemy est très-bonne'—odeur certes point bonne et la parolle aussi mauvaise." Brantôme, Le Roy Charles IX., edit. Lalanne, v. 258. The original authority for this odious remark is Papyrius Masson (1575) in his life of Charles IX., which Brantôme had under his eyes: "Servis fœtorem non ferentibus, hostis mortui odor bonus est inquit." Le Laboureur, iii. 16.
[1069] Le deluge des Huguenots avec leur Tumbeau, 1572. Reprinted in Archives curieuses, vii. 251-259.
[1070] Tocsain contre les massacreurs, Rheims, 1579, p. 143. It has been well remarked by a writer in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français (iii. 346) as one of the paradoxes of history, that Coligny's mangled remains, "after being carefully subjected to the most ignominious treatment, were saved from the annihilation to which they appeared to be infallibly condemned, and have been transmitted from place to place, and from hand to hand, until our own days, and better preserved for three centuries than many other illustrious corpses carefully laid up in costly mausoleums!" Marshal Montmorency placed the admiral's body in a lead coffin in his castle of Chantilly, whence he sent it to Montauban. François de Coligny brought it back to Châtillon-sur-Loing, when, in 1599, the sentence of parliament was formally rescinded. In 1786 it was taken to Maupertuis and placed in a black marble sarcophagus. Since 1851 it has been resting in its new tomb under the ruins of that part of the castle of Châtillon where Coligny was probably born. Bulletin, iii. 346-351.
[1071] Tocsain contre les Massacreurs, 146; Reveille-Matin, 195; Euseb. Philadelphi Dial., i. 51; Mém. de l'estat, 161; Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 44 verso.
[1072] The text of the declaration is to be found in the Mémoires de Claude Haton, ii. 683-685, in the Recueil des anciennes lois françaises (Isambert), xiv. 257, etc., and in the Mémoires de l'estat, ubi supra, 162-164. See De Thou, iv. (liv. lii.) 600. The Reveille-Matin calls attention (p. 196) to the circumstance that in the first copies of the document the name of Navarre did not occur; but that in the next issue the admiral's unhappy and detestable conspiracy was represented as directed against "la personne dudit sieur roy et contre son estat, la royne sa mère, messieurs ses frères, le roy de Navarre, princes et seigneurs estans près d'eulx." The policy of introducing Navarre, and, by implication, Condé, among the proposed victims of the Huguenots, was certainly sufficiently bold and reckless. See ante, p. 490.
[1073] See De Thou, iv. (liv. liii.), 630; Jean de Serres, iv., fols. 53, 54.
[1074] Euseb. Philadelphi Dial., i. 52.
[1075] Digges, 239, 240.
[1076] Ibid., 245
[1077] Documents historiques inédits, i. 713-715.
[1078] Agrippa d'Aubigné, Hist. univ., ii. 30; Jean de Serres (1575), iv., fol. 55.